Legacy social media platforms have full control of your online experience. They dictate what you see, who you can interact with, what you can say, and how much money you can make from your own content. If they don't like what you say they can censor or ban you. They can do this because their economic engine is based on monetizing your attention. They don't work for you. They don't care about you, and they have no interest in your well-being or success. But it doesn't have to be that way. We n...

Legacy social media platforms have full control of your online experience. They dictate what you see, who you can interact with, what you can say, and how much money you can make from your own content. If they don't like what you say they can censor or ban you. They can do this because their economic engine is based on monetizing your attention. They don't work for you. They don't care about you, and they have no interest in your well-being or success. But it doesn't have to be that way. We n...

I’m a big believer in the concept that serious problems require serious solutions. For that reason, whenever I hear people say that Universal Basic Income (UBI) can solve the problem of job automation, I tend to be skeptical. Maybe UBI is a solution that could work for a couple of years, but it’s definitely not a long-term solution. Those who believe it is a solution are missing one key element: politics. The naive view may be that since automation would lead to mass unemployment, there would...

I’m a big believer in the concept that serious problems require serious solutions. For that reason, whenever I hear people say that Universal Basic Income (UBI) can solve the problem of job automation, I tend to be skeptical. Maybe UBI is a solution that could work for a couple of years, but it’s definitely not a long-term solution. Those who believe it is a solution are missing one key element: politics. The naive view may be that since automation would lead to mass unemployment, there would...

If there is one event that clearly demarcates the shift from the Dark Ages to the Age of Enlightenment, it is the adoption of the heliocentric model of the cosmos. But while the actual Dark Ages are over, we still very much live in the Economic Dark Ages. Can the advent of blockchain technology be the “Galileo moment” that finally leads us to the dawn of a new economic age of mass prosperity? The adoption of the heliocentric model was not merely an advancement in astronomy; it was a fundament...

If there is one event that clearly demarcates the shift from the Dark Ages to the Age of Enlightenment, it is the adoption of the heliocentric model of the cosmos. But while the actual Dark Ages are over, we still very much live in the Economic Dark Ages. Can the advent of blockchain technology be the “Galileo moment” that finally leads us to the dawn of a new economic age of mass prosperity? The adoption of the heliocentric model was not merely an advancement in astronomy; it was a fundament...

How many times have you heard politicians and others saying that we need more funding going toward public infrastructure, education, housing, or other common goods? We take it for granted that the problem is merely not enough funding, but rarely do we think any deeper than that. If more funding for these is valuable to society, why don’t we have structures that effectively capture that value? And if we have things that are clearly harmful to society why don’t we have effective structures to d...

How many times have you heard politicians and others saying that we need more funding going toward public infrastructure, education, housing, or other common goods? We take it for granted that the problem is merely not enough funding, but rarely do we think any deeper than that. If more funding for these is valuable to society, why don’t we have structures that effectively capture that value? And if we have things that are clearly harmful to society why don’t we have effective structures to d...

The meta right now on social media (including Farcaster) is that users create content, art, or ship products, and then have to create distribution channels for their work by driving engagement to it. This creates a perverse incentive to create things that drive engagement instead of things that are actually valuable to people. With Impact Alpha creators and builders can focus on making the most impactful work for the Farcaster community, while curators are incentivized to proactively look for...

The meta right now on social media (including Farcaster) is that users create content, art, or ship products, and then have to create distribution channels for their work by driving engagement to it. This creates a perverse incentive to create things that drive engagement instead of things that are actually valuable to people. With Impact Alpha creators and builders can focus on making the most impactful work for the Farcaster community, while curators are incentivized to proactively look for...

Imagine you were made king for a day and had the power to decide how money is distributed in the economy. How would you do it? Maybe you'd distribute all the money equitably: every man, woman and child gets the same share. What would that look like? Well, maybe everyone has the same amount but not everyone knows how to use their money equally. Some people are gonna save it, some will gamble it away, and some will offers people an option to handle their money for a fee (thus making billions in...

Imagine you were made king for a day and had the power to decide how money is distributed in the economy. How would you do it? Maybe you'd distribute all the money equitably: every man, woman and child gets the same share. What would that look like? Well, maybe everyone has the same amount but not everyone knows how to use their money equally. Some people are gonna save it, some will gamble it away, and some will offers people an option to handle their money for a fee (thus making billions in...

What if the govt replaced dollars with CBDCs, but for some reason (perhaps ineptitude of govt devs) you could only use CBDCs to buy and sell things that begin with the letters A, B or C. Want to buy an apple or a car? No problem. Want to buy a house? Sorry. Houses start with H, and money doesn't work for that anymore. Best we can do is an apartment. But even then the apartment wouldn’t have windows, because you can’t make money producing windows (or glass). It’s not that it’s impossible to pr...

What if the govt replaced dollars with CBDCs, but for some reason (perhaps ineptitude of govt devs) you could only use CBDCs to buy and sell things that begin with the letters A, B or C. Want to buy an apple or a car? No problem. Want to buy a house? Sorry. Houses start with H, and money doesn't work for that anymore. Best we can do is an apartment. But even then the apartment wouldn’t have windows, because you can’t make money producing windows (or glass). It’s not that it’s impossible to pr...

How do decentralized networks surface value? There is an interesting dynamic in blockchains that anything that is built directly onchain is always open sourced. Obviously it's possible to build private businesses around that model, but the more public infrastructure is built on a blockchain the more use it is likely to get and the more demand there will be for the cryptocurrency. With this logic in mind it benefits L1s and L2s to incentivize builders and creators to develop the infra and tool...

How do decentralized networks surface value? There is an interesting dynamic in blockchains that anything that is built directly onchain is always open sourced. Obviously it's possible to build private businesses around that model, but the more public infrastructure is built on a blockchain the more use it is likely to get and the more demand there will be for the cryptocurrency. With this logic in mind it benefits L1s and L2s to incentivize builders and creators to develop the infra and tool...